Nothing Less Than Perfect
by Commonfangirl
Summary: Rachel was a perfectionist in almost every single thing she did and when her life goes into a debate about getting herself to perfection, she meets Jesse St. James, who helps her look at something else that is not the mirror, and most importantly helps her find perfection in oher ways Rachel never expected.
1. Chapter 1

**Hello hello :D I am happy to introduce you to another of my stories, so, I was blocked while writing a chapter for my other fic (Your Heart Is My Limit, if you haven't read it you should, it's really good xD I think.) and I came up with this idea, I've tried to write it like a million times but it never was quite right, until now. I have to tell you that I'm really excited about this one, I really like the concept. This is season two, born this way episode, I watched the episode recently, I hated Rachel's reaction and everybody's reaction really, I am not here to change that though, just Rachel, a little. While I was watching I noticed what a weak and insecure person Rachel had become and I do change that around. Some details about Jesse's life will come up as the story goes on, this is AU btw. Anyway, I hope you like it. Enjoy!**

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Rachel couldn't believe what was happening to her. For one she was in a doctor's office, but no, not just any doctor; a plastic surgeon, and why?

Because of Finn Hudson.

Yes, of course it hadn't been on purpose, he just had accidentally hit her on the nose and broken it. And Rachel was really starting to think that Finn was a real danger when you put him on a dance floor, it should be forbidden from now on, or at least she would never have him as a dance partner ever again; her nose had been the straw that broke the spleen, Finn always used to hit her head with the-not so-elaborated dance moves and stepped on her tip toes every time they did a turn, thank god Rachel Berry put professionalism first and never once exploded by yelling at Finn or do as much as a squirm or a flinch on stage. She had her goals set and wasn't going to let anybody screw that up. She was just grateful that they all were in the auditorium when Finn decided to let lose and not in some big competition, for example Nationals, which were just coming up. Her junior year just about to end as well.

She was tapping her foot impatiently, the waiting room was empty, just she and Finn, waiting. Rachel could sense Finn was trying to make eye contact with her, he wanted to apologize but she wasn't ready to forgive him, and not just for the broken nose. For everything. And the straight stare was starting to make her feel claustrophobic.

The door at the end of the room opened and a curly haired boy, with blue shining eyes stepped out of it, he was wearing dark blue scrubs and a superior smirk. Rachel had to admit he was by far the most attractive person she had seen in a long while and also quite a total stranger, but she would most rather be with him than with Finn; the most recent of her nightmares.

"Rachel Berry?" The guy asked for confirmation, looking at her.

"Yes." She answered too sure of herself for someone who just had her nose broken, and quite frankly; some of her dignity stolen.

"Come with me please, the doctor will see you now." Rachel nodded at the dismissive tone of the guy and stepped up, Finn following her actions.

"What are you doing?" Rachel demanded, frowning, obviously still mad at him.

"Rach, I'm-"

"Don't call me that." She interrupted him harshly.

"You don't want to go in there alone...remember when you got laryngitis, you said that with me there you didn't feel so nervous anymore." Finn spoke with that constipated half smirk he always sported when he was feeling unsure of himself and needed a real ego bust, which usually came from the girl that was making him feel so unnecessarily guilty at the moment.

"You don't know what I want. And, that was last year. Wait for me here." She commanded. It was nice to be the one in charge for a change, but not a second later, somebody else would turn it around.

"Uh, if you don't mind, I have work, so little girl would your rush this show of yours and come with me?" Rachel was taken aback for a second, obviously not used to being treated like that by staff of some service she was clearly paying a lot to get.

But then again, she was a professional and mature young lady and not any unchivalrous man would change that. So she just nodded one more time and stepped ahead, passed the door and the clearly inpatient curly haired guy.

"Okay, sit down on this chair, the doctor is on his way." He was about to exit the examination room until he heard one squeaky yet strong voice complain.

"On his way?!" Rachel yelled, with her eyes wide opened. "You told me he would see me now." The guy tilted his head to the right, as if he was seeing some unexplored new specie rise from where he had least expected.

"Well, I lied, does that make you angry, sweetheart?" Rachel was indignant, she could not believe she was being treated this way.

"You could get fired, you know that? Most importantly, I could get you fired." She threatened, inter-closing her eyes to make her face factions look as severe as her tone was. That was why she couldn't be more angered when she heard what she heard: laughter.

"You know, for the look on your face, I didn't thought you would have such a sense of humor." He mocked.

Rachel's jaw clenched, and her eyes opened wider, she felt her face start to heat up, but could feel her stare become colder at every second.

"That's it, I'm calling my dad, he will write your boss a letter, and you'll be out of here by this afternoon." The guy smirked pleasantly.

"Please, be my guest." Rachel frowned, trying to hide her confusion. She took her phone out of her bag and when she was just about to dial, she examined the guy's face again; calmed as can be, not a single worry, just the tiniest bit of a challenge set on his eyes, and she kept her phone once again on her bag. "What's that now? Are you scared?" He dared one more time, only this time with just his words, the last look on his face gone.

"No, I just decided you're not worth my time." She said dismissively.

The guy arched one brow in reluctance to let his minimal surprise be exposed to her. He always loved a good will game. But he shrugged, suddenly losing interest on the brown eyed girl, weakness was a total turn off.

He cleared his throat, while he opened a drawer and took a pair of surgical gloves, moving towards her to check on her nose. "So, what caused you this, sweetheart?" Rachel growled at the memory and also at the newly annoying nickname.

"A few bad gone dance moves." She said absentmindedly, trying to distract herself on something else to take the pain away from her head.

"I see, well, this just looks like somebody hit you, real hard. And let me clear this out, he is not hitting you because he loves you." Rachel scowled at the comment but anyways carried on.

"Nobody hit me, on purpose anyway." The guy only raised one brow at her, questioning.

"How come?"

"I told you, he's not the greatest dancer, he got a little way over excited and hit me accidentally." Rachel explained, gesturing outside the door.

"When you say he, you mean the guy sitting at the waiting room?" He asked, smirking and then chuckling softly, like something funny had crossed his mind, but Rachel didn't give any attention to that.

"Yes." She said before sighing, finding that action a little more hurtful than she had expected it to, so far she had been breathing so softly and slowly for her nose to not hurt she had almost forgotten about it.

"Did you already put some ice on it?" He asked.

"On what?" Not after too long of saying that, was that she realized what a stupid question it had been, but she was just out of reach right now. She did wish she could put some ice on her heart, which was currently hurt and needed some relieve.

"Your nose?" He said, softly smiling at her. Like if he had the same pain as her by smiling completely. Solidarity, she thought, but that would just be idiotic.

"Uh, yes, on my way here."

"Well, it is broken from what I can see, it has swollen down a little, and maybe it'll continue until the doctor has arrived." He took the gloves off and threw them to the trash, he was determined to walk out of the room again until the same voice as before, just slightly less up-salted, spoke.

"You know, I called in before I came here, I've paid for this appointment. He better have one hell of an excuse." Rachel said, nearly gone to anger again, but not just yet.

"Trust me, he doesn't. He does know how to fix what people don't like about themselves, but he is the biggest asshole I've ever met, and that's me talking." Although Rachel didn't know the young man, at all, she felt the need to laugh at that, and she lived another minute to regret that. Her nose started to pound and sting from the inside, it was strange how often she forgot about her current situation. She whined at the pain.

"Shit." Her hands instinctually moved to her nose, but the guy stopped her from making a worse mistake with that.

"Hey, don't touch that. Any more sudden moves and your block will get a little more awry." Rachel's heart stopped at his words.

"My nose is crooked?!" She yelled dramatically.

"It's just something that often happens when noses are broken." He explains with no interest on her complains.

"I can't live like this. I will never fulfill my dream of being a star on Broadway without symmetry! I will never succeed at anything!" The guy watched amazed at how, such a small town girl, with her heart on the eyes could be such a pessimist, but he was never one to judge people by looks, that was why he was working at a plastic surgeons private practice.

And when he was finally done with hearing her complain, he spoke.

"Relax! For God sakes, it can be fixed, when it has swollen down more, don't worry, sweetheart." Rachel touched her chest for dramatics and her mouth emitted some kind of relieved noise.

"Oh, that's great. And...Could you please stop calling me sweetheart...uh, whatever your name is?" She asked, psychopath smile on, but she could not quite put that in move since her face muscles weren't working at their tops.

"I guess I could call you broken nose girl, but we get a lot of them here. It would just get confusing." He offered, joking.

"Funny." She noted sarcastically. "I always thought medicine people were a lot smarter." He laughed out loud.

"You're not any better if you're calling them medicine people, which by the way I am not." He said grinning proudly, in spite of be wearing those scrubs.

Rachel rolled her eyes at him, although she had to accept she had kind of walked in to that one. She had to work on her terminology.

"Now, seriously, what is your name?" She asked, trying to change the subject and hopefully have not gotten across like a total dumbass.

"I'm not going to tell you."

"Why not?"

"Because not ten minutes ago you were threatening with getting me unemployed, I'm not an idiot." Rachel felt a little more powerful all of a sudden with his words, not knowing exactly why.

"I can just identify you, I have a very good memory." She threatened once more.

"Yes, well, my good looks are fairly easy to recognize. I always thought my face would look amazing in a national ad campaign, wouldn't you agree?" He added smugly, still smirking at the petite brunette girl who was trying to intimidate him, nobody ever could, and she wouldn't either.

"You're so full of yourself." She accused.

"I am, indeed, but with always a good reason." He said, before winking at her and finally going out of the room, succeeded at his third try.

Two minutes later the surgeon came in and told her the same the guy had, with a big drive away from the subject of the recovery of her nose; he suggested a nose job. It would make her look fairly better, but definitely not the same. There was a chance that her singing would improve and that was a good enough excuse for Rachel. With all this possibilities on her mind, the blue eyed cocky guy was moved down on her list.

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 **Soooo, what do you think of this? Do you like it, or you don't? Let me know if you want me to keep writting about this :D Please leave me a review with your opinion on it and it would be really appreciated and noted, all constructive criticism is very well welcomed as well. Thank you for reading ;)**


	2. Chapter 2

**Hi! First of, I want to thank you so much for taking the time to review and put the alert on this story, it means a lot more than you think. I will try to keep you intrigued and hopefully you like where the story is heading as more chapters are posted, this one is a little shorter than I usually write my chapters, but I couldn't join it with anything else so…yeah, anyway, I'll let you read already, enjoy!**

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She came back to the doctor's office four days later with a response on her mind, she was just worried about not feeling it in her heart, which was always the one making the choices.

Rachel was sitting on one of the stiff plastic chairs in the waiting room, debt to all of the comfortable seats were occupied, she was trying to read '100 años de soledad' for her AP Spanish class, but she couldn't get one word of it. She was certain that from afar she looked ridiculously conflicted by reading a book in a language she only understood three words of it, and was sure that didn't even know how to pronounce them. Yes, she was absolutely doomed, Rachel only took the AP class because she thought it would look good on her resume and also because she wrongly thought Mr. Shue would be the one teaching it. Her reading was interrupted by another teenager siting down beside her, who looked exaggeratedly dressed up for a doctor's appointment, Rachel's attention also got caught by the little bandage on top of her nose, which looked incredibly swollen, and she had bruises all around it, making her look like she had either not slept in a month or had gotten in a fight, both of them highly doubtful.

"I recently had surgery." The girl explained, looking back at her. Rachel felt how her face flushed of a soft red, embarrassment, she wasn't usually so indiscreet.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to stare." She apologised and went back to her book.

"Are you thinking of fixing that?" The girl warmly asked, pointing at her swollen nose, which still looked pretty damn bad.

"Uh, maybe." Rachel answered honestly. She looked at the clock on the wall, she still had a good five minutes to think about it. "Do you think it's worth it?" She asked the girl, collecting everybody's opinion except for hers.

"Well, if you really don't like it, then change it, there's nothing wrong about it. I for one have no regrets, once this beauty has recovered fully, I'll be a new me. It was my New Year's resolution." The girl said smiling, glowing happiness. And Rachel had to really think twice about it, she could either end up making the best decision of her life or regretting it for the rest of it. This decision was a big one and she couldn't do it on her own. But it was way too late to go running out the door.

"Rachel Berry?" A familiar voice called and Rachel looked up to meet once again the curly haired boy's eyes and she felt the odd need to stay. She got up from her sit, careful to not forget her book and followed the guy once more to the examination room, following the same routine as before. "You're in luck this once, broken nose girl, the doctor is in the office today." Rachel dismissed the nickname, finding it just a little funny.

"Then where is he?" She demanded.

"With another patient, he will be here as soon as he finishes, his words, not mine. so do not hold it against me." Rachel nodded, twitching her teeth nervously. She looked at the guy and cut a glance of a name tag which he immediately hid on his pocket. Rachel smirked momentarily. She wasn't a bad human being; she wasn't going to get somebody fired just because of some not so respectful words, she didn't know him, knew nothing about this guy's life, maybe he was just having a rough day, like she had, he couldn't be blamed because of that.

She did caught a J from his name tag, at least she could play guesses now while waiting.

"Jason? No, you don't look like a Jason." She started.

"What are you talking about?" He asked, slightly confused.

"Your name, you didn't tell me last time, I know it starts with a J and I just simply want to know, don't worry, I won't get you fired." The guy arched and eyebrow but curved his lips into a smirk and then nodded.

"Okay, let's see if you can guess." He agreed.

"Jeremiah?" He laughed.

"No, do I look like a Jeremiah to you? I am far better looking than any Jeremiah." Rachel rolled her eyes but kept going.

"Justin?" He shook his head.

"Jeff?" Was a no.

"Jamie?" No again.

"James." He shrugged.

"Jonathan!" He laughed again. "It is, isn't it?" He shook his head. "You do look like a Jonathan anyway."

"Well, I am not." He said. "Keep them coming, this is kind of fun." Rachel frowned.

"Jonas...Jack...Julian..." And all three were wrong, she was about to give up when the doctor came in with her answer.

"I'm sorry for making you wait, Rachel. Jesse, could you bring me her chart?" He smirked at her.

"Of course, doctor, right away." He said mockingly facing his boss who just sighed worn and then exited the room.

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 _Jesse_. It was a pretty name, she thought all the way back home, pretty enough to match the person. She wasn't going to deny that she felt attracted to him but there was also his attitude which made her take a step back on him. He obviously had a problem with authority, with that one she could not relate, at all, no matter how hard she tried to twist the concept of Rachel Berry. When she saw him, Rachel could not help but act around him as if she had long ago met him, anyhow, his face always seemed familiar and she could not make out from where. And just as his name was revealed to her, Rachel felt like two pieces of a puzzle finally clicked together, but so far away from seeing the whole image.

She wanted to be pretty, pretty enough to turn heads on the street like Quinn always did in the hallways. Her insecurities had not disappeared the day Finn suddenly told her he loved her, they just started growing in other directions and when she caught him staring for too long at a Cheerios skirt they started growing even more. Pretty was all she wanted, and if a nose job would get that for her, then she was on board.

Her dads had been supportive of her choice, much different from her glee friends who just had started with _'Rachel, why do you hate yourself?' Week_ , and it was annoying. She didn't hate herself, they were all clearly over reacting, and while Finn's 'Rachel you're beautiful' sentence would've done the trick before, today they just were meaningless words put together in order to get something done out of her. All her so called friends were acting like a bunch of hypocrites, they all had things they didn't like about themselves and tried to change that every day, and once she tries to, suddenly, it's unacceptable. She was surprised when Santana was the only one who was kind of supportive and Rachel had to admit that it was entertaining watching Santana truth-attack somebody that wasn't her.

Rachel had also been thinking about what the doctor had said to her the first time she was at his practice. That a nose job was kind of a passing ritual for Jewish girls? No. The thing about Barbra Streisand; she was her absolute idol, she had broken through the beauty standards everywhere and had succeeded like no other, but, she was also one in a million. Rachel had always thought that talent was all that mattered, but as she grew older she started to realize that looks are very important too and if high school hadn't hit her so hard she wouldn't be so self-conscious right now. But, if she had learned something so far; the secret to popularity and success was always without doubt beauty.

Concluding: she was going to be a new person and nobody could stop that.

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 **Aa** **and that was it** **, see? I told you it was short xD but anyways please leave me a review with your thoughts on it, what do you think Rachel might end up doing? And anything else you can think of, constructive criticism is very well welcomed as well.**

 **I hope you guys had great holidays and Happy New Year! :DDD 2016 please don't make such a mess of me xD**


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